TidBITS#152/16-Nov-92
=====================
Great reviews this week, including Now Utilities 4.0.1 and Rich
Wolfson's excellent book, The PowerBook Companion. Other
articles include news of an updater for Word 5.1, WordPerfect
buying BeagleWorks, a great way to roll your own Portable
DeskWriter, and a tip that could avoid serious hair-pulling for
tech support people. Read on, or forever be woefully uninformed!
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* Nisus Software -- 800/922-2993 x305 -- paragon@weber.ucsd.edu
For info on Nisus or QUED/M contact us. Updates now shipping!
For detailed information on Nisus Software and their products,
please send email to . For information on
all of Nisus's products, send email to .
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Topics:
MailBITS/16-Nov-92
Driver Education
PerfectWorks
Portable DeskJet Trick
Travels with Charley
What's Up, Now?
Reviews/16-Nov-92
[Archived as /info-mac/digest/tb/tidbits-152.etx; 29K]
MailBITS/16-Nov-92
------------------
We'd like to welcome our new sponsor, Nisus Software, publishers
of Nisus, Nisus Compact, and the programmer's editor QUED/M. You
can get an index of their information files (and find out how to
request files) by sending email to , or to
automatically receive a 38K file containing all six information
files, send email to . This file will not
pass through the AppleLink or America Online gateways, so users of
those services must request files individually.
Among other useful information, Nisus Software's files include
news about the just-updated QUED/M, Nisus hints and tips, using
Nisus foreign-language versions (the only foreign language word
processor available in the US, according to MacWEEK), descriptions
of Nisus Software's other products, and instructions on how to get
free demo versions of Nisus and Nisus Compact.
Many thanks to Nisus Software for supporting TidBITS!
Mail.Test Mistake
Last week Yoshiki Shibata accidentally sent a message to our
mailing list that slipped through the LISTSERV's setting that
allows only me to post to the group. The LISTSERV promptly
distributed it to everyone on the list. Yoshiki apologized
immediately, and certainly meant no harm. If you haven't replied
to the message already, please don't - all replies come to me, and
I've received some 300 responses.
Interestingly, the text of Yoshiki's message was essentially, "How
are you?" and the vast majority of the responses were an
optimistic, "I'm fine," although a few people qualified that
statement. The winner was Phil Ryan of Melbourne, Australia, who
wrote, "And I am quite well, were it not for the problem of trying
to rewrite a Ph.D. in Physics, do a Law degree part-time, and work
full-time, as well as be a father to two under-fives." Glad to see
so many people doing so well. :-)
On a related note, there's a chance that Internet users will see
two copies of this issue. I know some of my mailfiles are being
duplicated, and my mail host and I hope to solve the problem soon,
so please don't inundate me with notices if you receive the issue
in stereo. Thanks!
Word 5.1a patcher available
On Friday the 13th, Tony Huang posted to the Info-Mac digest,
saying "Believe or not, there's already a updater for the newly-
released Word 5.1. Word 5.1a fixes a bug in Word 5.1 during
fast-saving when headers or footers are involved."
Order the free updater from Microsoft Customer Service by calling
the number below, or download it from sumex. The 10K file is
archived on as:
info-mac/app/word-51a-updater.hqx
To address the prevalent net question about spending $15 on the
upgrade from Word 5.0 to 5.1, we at TidBITS feel the upgrade is
worth it for the serious Word user. Although the tone of the
program has not changed, Microsoft reportedly fixed a number of
bugs and added a few features, perhaps most important of which is
the ability to print even or odd pages. Welcome to the 1990's!
Microsoft Customer Service -- 800/426-9400
Information from:
Tony Huang -- tonyh@lynx.msc.cornell.edu
Driver Education
----------------
Steve Kalkwarf writes "We received about a dozen Macintosh
Classics earlier this year. I discovered that if I had them on an
AppleTalk network with machines of any other type, they would
crash when I connected to them with Apple's Likewise network
distribution software (the best $150 I ever spent). If they were
the only machines powered up, everything worked fine. Last night I
found the problem. Apparently Apple took a bunch of their System 6
Macs and installed System 7 WITHOUT UPDATING THE HARD DISK DRIVER.
When I unboxed the machines, I noticed the boxes had been opened
and retaped, and one box had a serial number label (from the
outside of the box) on the inside of the box that listed System 6
as the installed system. Running the 7.0.1 HD Setup program and
updating the driver cleared everything up. If any TidBITS readers
are having bizarre problems with Classics that came with System 7
installed, I'd check the driver."
Information from:
Steve Kalkwarf -- kalkwarf@netcom.com
PerfectWorks
------------
No, it's not another integrated package. Several weeks ago, Beagle
Bros. closed its doors and is no more. WordPerfect Corporation has
acquired BeagleWorks, the flagship product of Beagle Bros, along
with the list of registered users, the program, and the code.
WordPerfect plans to support existing BeagleWorks users, but the
program's name will change to WordPerfect Works (we preferred
WorksPerfect, though that might be pushing it, given some quirks
we've heard of). Beagle Bros. President Mark Simonsen will
continue as director of development.
Although we mourn the passing of Beagle Bros., a long-standing
company from Apple ][ days, the acquisition is probably for the
best for BeagleWorks. The program had trouble competing with
ClarisWorks and GreatWorks, whose developers have more marketing
clout. It was plagued by delays and early bugs, and despite its
undeniable power, BeagleWorks is harder to use than ClarisWorks.
From what we've seen of BeagleWorks and its full-support of
Publish & Subscribe for data transfer between modules, it's best
thought of as an integrated package for a power user, someone who
doesn't need full power but wishes to move data among numerous
programs. We wish BeagleWorks well in its new home.
Information from:
WordPerfect propaganda
Portable DeskJet Trick
----------------------
We said in TidBITS#146 that Hewlett-Packard had come up with a
Portable DeskJet, but no corresponding Portable DeskWriter, a
seemingly-obvious move given the popularity of the PowerBooks. We
don't have news about a Portable DeskWriter, but it turns out
that you can achieve the same functionality using the PowerPrint
2.0 collection of printer drivers from GDT Softworks.
Generally available for about $95, PowerPrint supports over 1,000
printers, and according to Steve Gully of GDT, the HP DeskJet 500
driver works fine with the Portable DeskJet. PowerPrint includes a
spooler and a parallel-to-serial converter cable for hooking to
printers that only have a parallel port. If you travel regularly
with a PowerBook and want to use printers wherever you end up,
PowerPrint would be a good addition to your travelling kit.
GDT Softworks -- 800/663-6222
Information from:
Steve Gully -- 72137.3246@compuserve.com
Michael E. Costello -- Michael_E._Costello@fourd.com
Travels with Charley
--------------------
So you bought a Power Book, perhaps one of those cute 100s? It's
different from your desktop Mac, isn't it? I recommend that you
read its manual - it was the first Apple manual I've read in
years, but I was curious. It helped, a little, but I still had
questions.
Then I came across Richard Wolfson's "The PowerBook Companion,"
(Addison-Wesley, $24.95, ISBN 0-201-6088407) and, to set the tenor
of this review, I think Apple should license Rich's book and ditch
the manual. Sure, Apple has that snazzy 80% Garamond font and
slick paper, but Apple's manual doesn't answer enough real world
questions. Rich's book answers all my questions, and periodically
I go back to it when I think of a new question. The answer is
usually there.
In addition, if you regularly travel with a Mac, any Mac, buy this
book. It gives excellent advice on what to bring, why to bring it,
how to power it in electrically-challenged situations, and most
importantly, how to take your Mac through airport security. Hint:
it's OK to run the Mac through the X-ray machine - put it on the
belt close to the flaps and far from the end where the magnetic
field from the motor could possibly do damage. That will save you
having to demo the Mac for the airport security people, who by
definition cannot have a sense of humor. Rich even printed X-rays,
taken at a medical friend's office, of his two PowerBooks, which
work perfectly even now. (Yes, I asked him.)
The book begins with specs and comparisons of the various
PowerBooks (this edition covers the 100, 140, and 170 - Rich is
working on a new edition for the new PowerBooks). Rich then
touches on upgrades you might want, from more RAM (YES) to a
larger hard drive (maybe) to a carrying case (yes).
Then he discusses basic usage and system software. Configuring a
PowerBook is a task of a different color, and as long as I'm
trampling equine allusions, you'd do well to check the System
Folder's teeth. Rich offers specific suggestions about what to
remove, including a chart that lists everything and the sizes
involved, and then repeats the process for RAM usage, providing a
useful chart of memory uses and the trade-offs involved. Since you
may wish to jam a System Folder into a RAM disk and boot from
that, memory usage takes on new meaning with a PowerBook.
Although Rich covers third party PowerBook hardware and software,
he doesn't look deeply into those subjects, which makes sense
given the speed at which the industry moves. He spends time on
using and caring for PowerBook batteries, both in and out of the
machine. For many of us desktop Mac folks, this will be the most
valuable section of the book, because our years of Mac use don't
help in knowing how to conserve power. The basics? Turn down
backlighting as far as possible, turn AppleTalk off (use Jon
Pugh's free ToggleAT FKEY), and avoid hard disk usage by running
entirely in RAM if possible. We put the System Folder on a RAM
disk, boot from the RAM disk, run Nisus Compact, which loads
entirely into RAM, and save documents to the RAM disk. Other
helpful hints in this section include the actual voltages for good
batteries (5.7 to 7 volts) and the warning NOT to use ANY other
power adapter to charge the PowerBook.
In his section on connections, Rich offers ideas on how to make a
SCSI chain work. Although he skips my favorite (ritual tofu
sacrifice), the rest helps with the more complex PowerBook SCSI
configurations. Other real world advice shows up in the section on
upgrading, where Rich walks you through taking a PowerBook apart.
Although I haven't done so, the instructions seem clear and
complete. I appreciate an author not treating me, the reader, as a
complete idiot and assuming there's no way I could open a
PowerBook and do good.
The worst nits I can pick are that Rich capitalized the "W" in
Macworld incorrectly (which he promised to fix in the next
edition); when talking about modem compression he doesn't mention
that it does no good when the file is already compressed; and he
occasionally uses the term "AppleTalk" when the Apple Nitpicking
Police (who once pulled me over for this offense) would prefer he
used "LocalTalk."
In the end, I view this book as an extremely knowledgeable friend
telling me all I want to know about the PowerBook. Outside of the
book, Rich spends time on CompuServe answering questions (and not
with an obnoxious "Read my book." answer, either), and his online
writing strongly resembles the clear, uncomplicated writing style
in this book (which is due in part to longtime Macintosh author
Sharon Zardetto Aker's editing). If you feel that you don't know
enough about your PowerBook (and I'm still learning), ask Rich by
reading this book. And no, he didn't pay me to say so. Highly
recommended.
Addison-Wesley -- 800/447-2226 -- 617-942-1117 (fax)
Information from:
Rich Wolfson -- 72467.617@compuserve.com -- wolfsonr@aol.com
wolfson@apollo.montclair.edu
What's Up, Now?
---------------
by Matt Neuburg -- clas005@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
Now Utilities (hereinafter, NU) is a collection of system
extensions, most of which started as shareware or freeware on the
nets, where faithful fans could not imagine life without them. By
giving these programs a home, Now Software ensured the
functionality would remain even when other utilities might fall by
the wayside of system software upgrades.
The neat part was that Now didn't steal the shareware ideas, but
co-opted the original authors. It was a win-win situation. Our
hacker heroes could make some well-deserved money. Non-netters
could obtain these great utilities, and netters who owned one of
the utilities in shareware form got a great discount on the
commercial package.
Then the story took an odd twist, when Now Software announced NU
4.0.
First, it seemed a bit soon for a major upgrade (and major new
fee); we know that buying software is really buying a
subscription, but the pricier issues should appear at decently
well-spaced intervals. Second, 4.0 was to be System 7-dependent;
System 6 users felt abandoned.
Third, 4.0 consisted, in a way, of less than 3.0.2. NU 3.0.2
comprised ten elements; in 4.0, three are missing. MultiMaster is
missing too as a separate item, but its functions remain in
NowMenus, and Now added a new item, Now Scrapbook. (At one point
an employee at Now's duplicating house wrongly told a netter that
the three missing utilities would break once 4.0 was installed;
nets being what they are, flames ran rampant.)
Finally, 4.0 was buggy in ways that Now Software had clearly not
anticipated, and it implemented some questionable changes. When I
started writing this review I was full of criticism for these.
But Now has largely taken the wind out of my sails with NU 4.0.1,
which corrects the bugs and the most controversial of the design
changes, and adds important clarifications to the manual. However
this has happened (smart rethinking? serious attention to feedback
from netters?), the result is an admirable product.
Zooming In
Here I'll consider just Super Boomerang (SB) and NowMenus (NM),
because I take these to be the heart of NU; they both do something
indispensable, as in their old net-ware manifestations.
Hiroaki Yamamoto's Boomerang memorized names and locations of
files and folders you had recently opened, and modified the
Standard File dialog (SFDialog) to list these so you could bypass
shuttling around the hierarchy. Also, the dialog came up in the
most recently used folder, and in any folder the most recently
used file would be pre-selected.
Jorg ("jbx") Brown's hierMenus let the menubar appear under the
mouse; it also let you choose a Control Panel as a submenu to the
Apple menu, bypassing the tedious CP scrolling in System 6.
For these achievements, Yamamoto and jbx achieved canonization,
and perhaps hacker nirvana.
Boomerang: the Commercial Version
In NU 3.0.2, SB works its magic in three different places.
* It installs a SB item in the Apple menu (the "Apple SB" menu),
with the list of recent folders and files as a submenu.
* It attaches a submenu to the Open menu item of every program
(the "DirectOpen" menu), listing the recently opened files
available to that program.
* It modifies the SFDialog with a menubar of its own. The first
three menus are Folder, File, and Drive, so you can go right to
any recent file or folder.
(For brevity I'll skip the fourth menu in the SFDialog, which does
neat stuff, but doesn't bear heavily on the comparison between
3.0.2 and 4.0.1.)
The fifth menu added to the SB menubar is Groups. Here, you make
each program a member of one of five groups (there is also an
automatic catch-all group, Universal), so that the groups consist
of programs that do roughly the same thing. The SFDialog then
always appears preset to the present program's group, and when you
choose its Files or Folders menu, only those belonging to a
program in that group are shown. But you can change groups via the
Group menu, so you can quickly reach any recent file or folder.
The Apple SB menu matches the program group you're in, defaulting
to Universal if the Finder is to the front; but the first item of
the Apple SB menu is Open, giving the SFDialog, where again you
can change groups and go right to your goal. The Groups feature
thus lowers the number, and increases the relevance, of entries in
the Files and (especially) Folders menus, and lets you use any
program's SFDialog to quickly launch another program's recent
document.
SB 4.0.1 is both better and worse. It is smarter than 3.0.2 about
knowing that a file has been opened, and adding it (whether
document, program, or DA) to the full list of recent files, even
when it wasn't opened through the SFDialog; 3.0.2 tries to do
this, but isn't always successful. Both 3.0.2 and 4.0.1 are also
smart about knowing which recent files can be opened by the
present program, but in 4.0.1 you now have three choices:
* to limit recent files to those actually opened by the present
program, and folders to those containing them;
* to include some other recent files that the present program can
open, and the folders containing them;
* or to use Groups, so that all openable recent documents
belonging to programs in the present Group are shown, and folders
containing them, plus any folders designated "permanent" for that
Group - and a mere single keystroke at any time will so designate
a folder.
In 3.0.2, with only five Groups, the Universal group menus easily
become overloaded, dropping important but less recent items. In
4.0.1, you get seven Groups; a single keystroke at any time clears
a SB menu item on the fly; SB remembers up to 500 total items; and
menus can be limited to any number of items up to 99. So menus
will stay more current. On the other hand you can't switch Groups
within the SFDialog - the Groups menu is gone. So if I have a Text
program group and a Graphics program group, I can't just launch a
MacDraw document from TeachText's SFDialog via SB, as I used to in
3.0.2; I have to hope it's in the Apple SB menu, or launch MacDraw
first. I see this as a bad design decision.
Other 4.0.1 improvements: Recent folders in the Apple SB and
DirectOpen menus are accessed hierarchically (in 3.0.2, you scroll
down a huge single menu of all files and folders in the Apple SB
menu, and the DirectOpen menu has no folders). Hierarchical folder
menus run in both directions, up and down, for more mobility (but
limited to a depth of two sublevels, though that's one more than
3.0.2). All SB menus can show the pathname of an item with a
keystroke at any time! And Now shrunk 3.0.2's confusing panorama
of 18 "hot key" shortcuts to a basic set of four.
Alas, the greatest drawback of SB 3.0.2, that it increases the
delay before the Standard File dialog appears, has not been cured
in 4.0.1; perhaps it can't be.
NowMenus: the Commercial Version
In System 6, NM 3.0.2 does what the shareware version did, plus
you can have menus pop down and stay down, so you can choose an
item without mouse-dragging (reducing repetitive stress
injuries!). In System 7, it turns the Apple menu hierarchical.
This means, among other things, that you can alias your whole hard
drive in the Apple menu and go down the hierarchy of submenus (to
a depth of four sublevels) to reach a file or folder, without
opening windows in the Finder.
NM 4.0.1 improves this. Submenus representing contents of folders
come up more quickly; the hierarchical Chooser submenu now
operates correctly, so you can bring the Chooser up with a driver
pre-selected; and the Monitors CP is hierarchical, so you can
change color depth quickly.
This version is a major rewrite, with menus acting in entirely new
ways. Menus can be any font and size. Folder and file items can
have icons (color if desired). You can rearrange the Apple menu
without renaming its items. You can press keys while the mouse is
on a menu item to (among other things) change the keyboard
shortcut for any menu item in a program, including the Finder!
Sadly, though, NM disables a tiny free extension on which I depend
heavily: Dropple Menu. This allows you to drag an icon onto the
Apple menu, down the hierarchy of submenus, and onto an item
representing a folder; your original file is then moved/copied
into that folder. I use this for all moving and copying of files;
it's much neater than first finding the folder I want to move
into. Dropple Menu works under NM 3.0.2 but breaks under 4.0.1.
A major worry with NM 4.0.1 is compatibility. Such strong changes
to the menu definition may conflict with some applications.
Fortunately, NM has some intelligence about what programs it
should avoid, and can be set for additional exclusions; the pop-up
menubar and the hierarchical Apple menu still work everywhere,
which is the important thing.
NowMenus: the MultiMaster (MM) Component
MM 3.0.2 is a launcher. From an icon in the menubar or by a
keyboard command, you get a list of programs, which you have
created; attached to each program can be a list of documents. Now
you can launch what you can see.
The big changes in 4.0.1 are increased flexibility and ease of
configuration, and communication with SB via a new extension, Now
Toolbox. You can configure many "launch menus," and into each put
any folder, program, document, or control panel, rearranging the
order in each launch menu. And, among the "items" you can add to a
launch menu are lists of recent programs, documents, or folders.
You can even modify these lists, to make an item permanent or to
remove it, by pressing a key while viewing the menu.
Further, you can create "worksets," combinations of programs and
documents, all of which will be launched together by selecting
that workset from a launch menu, or by double-clicking an icon in
the Finder. Also, NM replaces Understudy, letting you configure
what programs will open documents whose creator you don't own, and
it replaces AppSizer, automatically resizing an program's memory
allotment temporarily if there isn't enough memory otherwise, or
letting you resize on the fly.
Unfortunately, you can't separate all these features from the rest
of NM. I'd rather they still resided in separate components so I
could use them with NM 3.0.2 and Dropple Menus. Also, a thing I
disliked about MM 3.0.2 has not changed: the lists are not
hierarchical. Documents can be attached as submenus to programs;
but programs themselves cannot be made submenus to anything. So if
you want a really extensive list of your programs, you get a huge
scrolling menu. I prefer Jeremy Roussak's Apollo (currently
freeware, soon to be shareware), which, though providing only one
launch menu, lets it consist of meaningful categories that you
create, into which the programs are grouped as submenus. It seems
to me that NM provides power without a convenient interface to
access it.
NM 4.0.1 supposedly gives you many launch menus, so in theory you
could have one launch menu for graphics programs, another for text
programs, etc. Not so, in reality. Here's why. There are three
ways to make a launch menu appear: as a pull-down from an icon in
either corner of the menubar (that's two menus); as a pop-up when
you press the mouse on the desktop (that's one more); and as a
pop-up when you press the mouse with any combination of four
modifier keys, except Shift, Command, or Option alone (that's 12
more).
But in fact many combinations are out, because other programs use
them. I can't use the simple desktop pop-up, because it pops up
when I'm dragging an icon on the desktop. I can't use the option-
click or command-option-click pop-ups because they pop up when I
use those combinations in HyperCard. In fact, any combination of
modifiers and mouse used in any of your programs means that that
combination can't be used for a launch menu, or it will interfere
with other operations. If you have a lot of programs and
extensions that rely on mouse-plus-modifiers you may be left with
very few possible combinations.
Besides, who can _remember_ a bunch of modifier-key combinations?
A combination of modifiers with a letter-key to bring up a
windoid, as in MM 3.0.2, would have been easier.
Dubious Conclusion
Now Software is trying to improve your control and convenience in
innovative ways, and I am grateful. But it is perhaps because my
expectations and hopes for this upgrade were so high that I remain
dubious about NU 4.0.1.
No one should live without SB, that much is clear. In 3.0.2, the
presence of SB alone justified the price of the whole package.
Some of the new features of SB 4.0.1 are aesthetic, and I'm not
convinced that the new Groups system is as good as the old; but on
balance SB 4.0.1 remains a major must-have.
On the other hand, I regret NM 4.0.1 because it disables Dropple
Menu, and I'm not happy with the interface to the launcher. NM
3.0.2. is stable and friendly, so I may stick with it and Apollo
as a launcher and continue to fill in NM's other new functions
with extensions I already own, many of them freeware.
I realise this doesn't tell you what to do (not that TidBITS
readers would stand for such a thing anyway). If you own NU 3.0.2,
perhaps you'll consider the upgrade price worth the gamble
regardless, especially since you can mix-and-match like me. Now
has said that they will upgrade NU 3.0.2 to be compatible with
future versions of the System, but don't look for that to last
indefinitely. And who knows what will be in NU 5.0?
While still scratching my head over some of Now Software's
decisions, I heartily acknowledge their dedication, ingenuity, and
sheer programming skill. Now Utilities 4.0.1 is a productivity
powerhouse, and has eradicated much of the bad taste that 4.0 left
in my mouth. The bugs aren't all gone: I still get crashes from SB
and NM, sometimes with loss of various settings, particularly at
crucial times like when the SFDialog is trying to appear. But this
package still deserves full Penguins and a gasp of admiration.
Now Software -- 71541.170@compuserve.com
Reviews/16-Nov-92
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 09-Nov-92, Vol. 6, #40
Kodak DCS 200ci -- pg. 53
FastCache Quadra -- pg. 53
QuadCache 25 -- pg. 53
Action! 1.0 -- pg. 60
JMP Design 2.0 -- pg. 61
PhonePro 1.0 -- pg. 62
Photoshop accelerators -- pg. 66
Lightning Effects II
ThunderStorm
DocuComp II 1.04 -- pg. 67
..
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